With Michael Jackson’s biopic still pulling in huge cinema audiences, a Netflix docuseries is revisiting one of the most disputed periods of his life.
Michael Jackson: The Verdict, now available on Netflix, focuses on the singer’s 2005 criminal trial, which stemmed from allegations that he molested 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo.
Jackson denied the accusations. He was later cleared of every charge, with jurors pointing to insufficient evidence.
Told across three episodes, the series mixes interviews with attorneys, reporters and figures from Jackson’s inner circle, while also using archival material, including footage from police searches and past interviews.
Below are several of the documentary’s most attention-grabbing moments and claims.
One of the series’ key interviewees is Vincent Amen, who says he began working for Jackson in 2002 and was assigned to support the Arvizo family as the case intensified in the media.
During his on-camera interview, Amen shares Polaroids he says were taken at Neverland. One photo is shown with a caption attributed to Gavin’s younger brother Star: “I love you, my daddy Michael. Your son, Blowhole.”
“These are the nicknames that Michael would give these young boys,” Amen says in the film.
USA TODAY, which reviewed the series, says the Jackson estate was contacted for a response but did not reply.
The documentary escalates its allegations later in episode one. Amen claims that after Jackson’s arrest, Jackson’s longtime friend and assistant Frank Cascio — also known as Frank Tyson — allegedly gave him a bag that, according to Amen, contained a magazine with pages marked and circles drawn around listings in what he describes as a video-ordering section.
“Start flipping through it, and there was … circles around the video-ordering section,” Amen says.
“Someone wanted these videos, circled the ones they want. These videos, which are of children naked.”
The series states that Tyson was not reachable for comment by the production team.
When Neverland was searched, Jackson was not there. In the docuseries, investigative journalist Diane Dimond claims he was staying in a Las Vegas villa in the days after the raid, wearing what she characterises as a colourful dashiki-style outfit and hosting gatherings.
“There were cigarette burns in the leather couches and chairs,” Dimond alleges.
“There were empty liquor bottles on every table. And this is where Michael Jackson had been for several days, entertaining young teenage boys, who all spoke German.”
Two days after the search of Neverland, Jackson turned himself in at the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department and posted $3 million bail.
Defence lawyer Mark Geragos says the process took an extreme personal toll on Jackson.
“The ingestion of substances was just astronomical,” Geragos says in the documentary.
“There was a time when I actually saw him in the fetal position on the floor, and I thought, ‘What do we do?'”
Jackson was acquitted on all counts on 13 June 2005. But biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli says the verdict didn’t undo the damage, recalling a conversation with Jackson’s manager Frank DiLeo.
“He turned to me, and he said, ‘You don’t get it. This is life-ruining for Michael. He will never recover from this,” Taraborrelli recalls.
Jackson died on 25 June 2009, four years after the trial, from acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication. He was 50.
Michael Jackson: The Verdict is streaming now on Netflix.
Michael Jackson’s attorney and estate have been approached for comment.